


5 Times People See Felicity Smoak Interacting with The Arrow (and one time they see her with Oliver Queen)

by imfallingforyoureyes102



Series: On the Outside Looking In [15]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: CEO Oliver Queen, CEOliver, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Mutual Pining, Protective Felicity Smoak, Protective Oliver, Season 2, Slow Burn, outside looking in
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:33:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23779204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imfallingforyoureyes102/pseuds/imfallingforyoureyes102
Summary: Different moments where outsiders catch a glimpse of the dynamic duo that is Felicity Smoak and Starling City's famed Vigilante.5 + 1; Part of "On the Outside Looking In" but with Oliver as his alterego.Chapter 1: Donna and CompanyChapter 2: Detective Lance
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: On the Outside Looking In [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1319063
Comments: 146
Kudos: 519





	1. the one where donna smoak and company watch felicity and the arrow bicker

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This random thought came to me and I decided to interweave it into this series. I was originally going to have like two or three moments and make it a long one-shot, but don't have time to do that all tonight and I wanted to post. 
> 
> That being said, I only have a rough outline for this 5+1 fic, so if you have anyone you would like to observe Felicity and ~the Arrow~, let me know!
> 
> Hope you all are healthy and safe! Please enjoy!

Felicity’s a smart woman.

She breezed through high school and all its drama two years ahead of schedule and aced her way to the top of her class at MIT with far more ease than one would think.

Felicity’s brilliant. Hell, she’s a genius – a whip smart, brain works faster than she can speak, knows _way_ more than her own good genius.

She knows that, Queen Consolidated knows that. Oliver’s pretty sure the entire West Coast and then some knows that too.

Yeah, she’s a smart woman. And yet, sometimes, she’s also an idiot.

Felicity shakes her head at that thought, ever so against belittling herself in her head. Okay, correction, Felicity insults herself in her head all the time, but she’d like to have a little sense of self-confidence when she’s staring down the barrel of a gun, so she replaces _idiot_ with _genius with bad luck_ and brings herself back to the present.

“I _said,_ ” Mr. Mugger-Mc-Muggerson spits, and Felicity holds back a flinch. “give me your purse, you bitch.”

Felicity’s displeased _hey_ is cut off by the tight grip her mother has on her arm. She glances to the side – as much as she can without triggering the gun-wielding maniac in front of her – and sees the wide-eyed gazes of her mother and cousins.

Yeah okay, maybe she’s an idiot.

They had been on their way back to the car after their late dinner, and because Felicity spends a large quantity of her time aiding a certain billionaire CEO turned vigilante in the fine act of de-criminalizing the city, she’s grown accustomed to parking her car in back alleys and discrete areas to avoid being tailed.

Unfortunately for her, that tiny habit had pushed her to park in an alley that had looked _harmless_ in the daylight. Now, however, she can totally see where she _may_ have fracked up.

Emmeline lets out a small whimper when the man before them takes a step closer to Felicity and drags the tip of the gun down her jawline.

Felicity’s far calmer than she would have been two years ago, having faced her own share of near-death experiences. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel a swell of white-hot fear roll through her body when she hears a small click.

But then she hears another noise – one so familiar and smooth and laced with the feeling of safety that she sags into her mother’s hold in relief.

An arrow whips through the air, transforming at the last second into a bundle of ropes. One minute the mugger is pressed against Felicity – in the next, he’s tied tightly to a large pipe, dangling from his left foot. The gun clatters to the ground and Felicity has enough sense to kick it away from the reach of the criminal.

Emmeline yelps just Audrey lets out a strangled whine and the grip that Donna Smoak has on her daughter’s arm is enough to draw Felicity’s attention away from the shiny metal of the gun.

She glances up, her breath leaving her body in pure relief, and pulls free of her mother as she watches a hooded form lean in threateningly to the mugger.

She can’t hear what Oliver says, but from the way the man’s face contorts, she knows it isn’t pretty.

_Team Arrow:1, Sucky, Smelly Mugger-man: 0._

But then Oliver’s turning, his stature all tense lines and rigid bones, and the small blonde’s terrified for a whole different reason.

_“Ah, frack.”_

He stalks over to them, and Felicity has enough sense to pull away from her family slightly before Oliver grabs her arm and yanks her towards him. Felicity can see the flash of anger in his eyes – she can see the slight tick of his jaw as he draws in a deep breath – and Felicity offers him a weak smile.

“Nice night, isn’t it?”

Oliver growls.

“This is an abandoned alley and it is _nighttime_ ,” Oliver hisses out quietly, his modulator making his voice ten times more intimidating. “Do you see why I’m upset? _”_

Felicity opens her mouth to answer, but then her brow is furrowing in question and she’s prodding a finger into his chest.

“Hey, mister,” she starts defensively.

“ _Felicity - ,”_

“Were you _following me_?” She whispers accusingly, and if it weren’t for the hours upon hours she’d spent in Oliver’s company, she would have missed the slight pause in his movements – she would have missed the way his eyes widen slightly and dart back and forth between her own in the same way they do when she catches him not so discreetly stealing the cranberries from her salad.

“You _were_ , weren’t you,” Felicity whispers emphatically, completely oblivious to her mother’s shaken stare or her cousins’ confused expressions.

The three Smoak women share weary glances as they watch Felicity all but puff out her chest and push into the _Arrow’s_ personal space. Her face is right next to the hooded vigilante’s, or as close as it can be with the height difference, but then she bounces forward on her tippy toes and levels the man with her own glare.

Donna shifts uncomfortably as Felicity and Starling City’s famed vigilante whisper fiercely back and forth. The way they hold themselves around each other – they way Felicity almost leans into his grasp as he makes himself smaller, crouching slightly so that Felicity can hear him – is strangely intimate. If Donna hadn’t known any better, she’d think that they knew each other, and it’s the curiosity that _that_ thought sparks that has her drifting a bit closer to the pair.

“Yeah, Mr. Control Freak,” Felicity taunts softly, “If you’re so upset that I walked down some wiggy, dark alleyway and almost got mugged, then I can be upset that you thought I needed to be babysat - ,”

“Are we _really_ going to argue that right now?” Oliver deadpans, eyebrow arching under the hood as the mugger interrupts their confrontation with a distressed sigh.

Felicity purses her lips, mulling the question over in her head.

“Alright, fair.”

Oliver lets out a harsh breath through his nose.

Neither of them touch on the fact that Oliver _had_ been tailing Felicity. She’d expected it anyway, especially since just last week one of their targets had followed her car from QC to the grocery store after realizing that she was the same blonde that had been poking around at his factory.

She had been _fine_ , more spooked than anything else. And, in the end, it had been easier for Oliver and Digg to catch him. But Felicity still hasn’t forgotten the look of distress that had painted Oliver’s face all week, nor the fact that he repeatedly apologized to her as if being cornered in the canned soup section under fluorescent lighting by a maniac was somehow Oliver’s fault.

Felicity lets out her own sigh of defeat and Oliver’s grip tightens around her arm.

“Okay, you have a point. But aside from that,” Felicity continues in a whisper, although her tone has lost most of its bite, “I thought we agreed that you guys wouldn’t go out without your very smart and very capable pair of eyes in the sky.”

Oliver offers a smile – it’s fleeting, but there, and for a second Felicity forgets that she’s being scolded by Starling City’s vigilante or that she was almost tossed into a garbage can by a man that smelled more like cat pee than human.

Oliver’s altered voice pulls her from her thoughts.

“Digg’s got my back,” he says so softly that Felicity can barely hear him. She does though, and when the words register, her eyes are widening and she’s looking into the camera where she knows Digg can see her.

“So, you mean - ,” she starts shakily, before dropping her voice to barely a whisper. “Digg knows I almost got mugged?”

Oliver’s lips press together tightly, and Felicity can almost hear Digg’s own loud voice filtering through Oliver’s earpiece. She offers a sheepish smile to the camera.

“Digg’s gonna kill me,” Felicity hisses through the smile, lips unmoving, before she finally drags her eyes away from the small camera and looks up at Oliver with a jaded expression.

He lets out a huff that sound so much like an exasperated laugh that it draws the attention of every single Smoak women. Oliver shakes his head.

“So, you’re scared of _him_ , but not me?” He whispers back, and it almost sounds like teasing, but Felicity isn’t going to take her chances because it’s finally hitting her how badly the night could have gone had Oliver not been programmed to be an overprotective, controlling, stubborn Neanderthal with a bow and arrow.

“I could never be scared of you,” she says instead, more to herself than anyone else.

The words are out before she can even think about their weight, but then Donna Smoak is calling her name and the two quickly jerk apart.

Oliver flashes a look in Donna’s direction, but the way the light falls make shadows dance across his face, obscuring him from her inquisitive eyes.

He pulls back, drawing a bow from his quiver, and levels Felicity with an intense gaze.

“Go straight to your car. The edge of the Glades isn’t the best place to be walking around at night.”

His voice booms in the small alleyway as he nocks his arrow and Felicity turns back to face her family. Donna pulls Felicity towards them, and when they look back, he and the mugger are gone.

Felicity’s far more composed than both her cousins and her mother, completely unphased by the events of the night. But she can see that Donna is about to launch into one of her famous reprimands – can see the way both Emmeline and Audrey lean forward with a million questions on the tips of their tongues, and so she does what she does best and completely avoids the situation.

Felicity offers them all a bright smile, dismissing everything that just happened as she moves to unlock her Mini Cooper.

“We should watch a movie tonight! I’m feeling comedy – ,”

“ _Felicity Megan Smoak_ , what the _hell_ was that!?”


	2. the one where detective lance can't exist in peace because felicity smoak is throwing ice cream at the damn vigilante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Detective Lance just wants to eat his meatball sub, listen to a baseball game, and dissociate from existence for ten freaking minutes but _no_ , he cannot, because a certain blonde that he has become extremely fond of is now picking a (food) fight with Starling City's famed vigilante.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the typos and if it seems weird, I just wanted to write something and get it out since it's been so long and everything is weird and who knows if we exist anymore. Anyway! Hope you enjoy and are all stayings safe. Love you all!

Quentin Lance lets out a satisfied _humph_ as he falls ungracefully into the worn-out seat of his cruiser. There was once a time in his career when that action wouldn’t have hurt so much, but now his knees are popping and his hair is receding and his last visit to the doctor’s office had resulted in Laurel swapping out everything edible in his apartment for leafy greens and rabbit food.

Lance loves his oldest daughter, he does. But there’s no way in fiery hell that he’s surviving to the next morning if all he finds in his fridge is a head of lettuce.

So he’s here, discretely parked in front of Sal’s Subway Shop on the edge of the Glades, cradling a extra cheesy meatball sub in his left arm with far too much care. Lance leans back against the seat and switches on the radio before unwrapping the steaming sandwich. Chatter fills the air – a recap of the baseball game from the day before – and Lance is in his happy place – he’s _content –_ because he’s got good food and sports and - ,”

Lance pauses with the sub halfway to his mouth as a flash of blonde catches his eye.

It’s more the familiar swing of a perfectly smooth pony tail that tugs at his attention than anything else, and soon enough he’s dropping his sub back into the wrapping with a small growl because _of course_ it’s Felicity Smoak that’s walking cheerfully towards the 24 hour bodega.

_In the middle of the fucking night._

Lance smiles ruefully at the meatball sub sitting in his lap because it’s at this point he knows with every fiber of his being that it won’t be his diet that ends up killing him.

No.

It’ll one hundred percent be the fact that the people in his life he’s come to love enough to take ten thousand bullets for also happen to be idiots without an ounce of self-preservation.

Lance watches Felicity as she nears the bodega, her arms swinging joyfully and her eyes bright and wide as she takes in the world around her. The detective has no doubt in his mind that he and her are going to have a _very_ pointed conversation about what constitutes safety and good decision making in the near future, but he also can’t help the smile that pulls at the corners of his mouth when the small blonde steps under one of the street lights.

She’s wearing pajama pants.

Bright, blazing pink pajama pants with the damn flying buffalo thing from that kid’s show that Sara had adored so very much many, many years ago.

 _“He’s a flying_ bison, _Dad. And his name is Appa.”_

Lance shuts down the memory of Sara before his mind can dive too far into its normally constant state of misery and grief, and he focuses his attention on Felicity instead. A small part of him can’t help but think about how much Sara would have loved Felicity, and even though he doesn’t really believe in all that spiritual mumbo jumbo crap, it’s almost as if Felicity had come barreling into his life with all her color and babbles and intensity at just the right moment.

A warm swell of affection for the young blonde sweeps over Lance, and he settles back into his seat as he watches Felicity push into the convenience store.

She’s back out the door in a few minutes, her hands full with a big brown paper bag, and Lance swears he’s going insane because one second Felicity’s beaming so wide her smile can rival the moon, and the next she’s slamming into - ,

The _Arrow._

Lance tenses as he watches Felicity ram right into Starling City’s famed Vigilante. He’s got half a mind to leap out of his car and ask Felicity why she thought turning down a dimly lit alleyway was a good idea in the first place, but then her paper bag is falling to the ground and a giant tub of mint chip ice cream is bursting all over the pavement and yeah, Lance had _thought_ he’d been on the receiving end of Felicity’s loud voice before, but _this_ is something else.

He can’t hear too much of what’s going on, but Felicity’s brow is furrowed and her mouth is running a mile a minute and where literally anyone else in the whole damn city would have been sprinting in the opposite direction, Felicity Meghan Smoak places both palms firmly against the Vigilante’s broad shoulders and _shoves._

He doesn’t move an inch – of course he doesn’t – but that just seems to rile up the small blonde even more.

Lance watches intently, his hand grasped tightly around the gun in his holster, but the Arrow just brings up his hands in a placating gesture and tilts his head slightly.

Felicity doesn’t seem to care, though. She’s given up on shoving him, instead swatting at his arms and driving her finger against his chest as she rambles, and Lance watches in complete bewilderment as the Vigilante’s shoulders start shaking as if - ,

As if _he’s laughing._

If Lance wasn’t so sure before, he’s certain now, because Felicity is bending down to scoop some of the spilt ice cream from the pavement and it’s only with his quick reflexes that the Arrow manages to shift to the side to avoid the sticky desert that Felicity flings at his head.

He’s standing closer to the light now, and Lance can see a full set of bright white teeth as a smile splits across the Arrow’s normally stoic face. There’s something slightly familiar about the way his lips tug up at the right a bit more than the left – it’s a grin that he’s sure he’s seen before a long time ago – but the thought is lost as Lance watches Felicity launch another fistful of ice cream at the Vigilante.

There’s a tsunami of pride that pours through Lance when she finally nails him in the chest, but at that point the Vigilante is hunched over slightly and his shoulders are shaking with laughter and the rage that had once painted Felicity’s features has softened into a fond smile.

Lance watches curiously as Felicity walks up to the Vigilante, all but pressing up into his personal space.

She’s about to smear another handful of ice cream all over his cheek, but then the Arrow is catching her wrist in his hand and staring down at her with a raised eyebrow and his lips pressed tightly together.

The detective rolls down the window then because he’ll be damned if anything happens to his pseudo-daughter – but the conversation he hears bouncing between the two is _familiar_ and _warm_ and oddly intimate.

Lance had never been quite sure how well Felicity actually new their mutual friend, but now he’s certain they’re at least on a first name basis.

He wonders how Queen feels about that.

“Felicity - ,”

The Vigilante’s gruff, modulated voice pierces the night, but Felicity just rams a clenched fist into his arm with a small growl.

“Listen here, _Mister_ ,” she snarls. “I waited all day – _all fracking day_ – to get my hands on this holiday edition mint chip ice cream and _you_ \- ,”

The Arrow opens his mouth, words of protest already slipping past his lips, but they muffle as Felicity slams her palm against his mouth without missing a word.

“And _you_ , you dumb, stupid brick wall, think it’s funny that my happiness is now melting on the pavement - ,”

The Arrow lets out an amused snort, and Detective Lance doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry when Felicity stomps down petulantly on the Vigilante’s foot because this _tiny_ , pajama pants wearing blonde maniac somehow has one of the most lethal men in the city pinned up against a wall.

“ _Ow!_ Hey -,”

“Oh, don’t you _hey_ me, I can’t believe you would do this to me - ,”

“Felicity. It’s just ice cream. It’s not the end of the world.”

“I’ll show you _end of the world -, ”_

Lance tenses when the door of the convenience store swings open, and a wave of fear washes over him as he watches the Vigilante spin out of Felicity’s grip and tug her against him. The fear is quickly replaced with an odd sense of gratitude, however, when the detective realizes that the Arrow had tucked Felicity behind him and braced an arm around her to keep her from peeking out from behind him.

There’s no threat – all three of them can see that as soon as an older woman carrying a large coffee jostles past the alley where Felicity and the Arrow are hidden – but Lance can still see the way the archer’s shoulders sag slightly in relief.

Lance holds back a huff of amusement when Felicity pokes her head out from behind the Vigilante and glares harshly at the woman stepping in the puddle of melting ice cream.

But then she’s fixing her glare back onto the Vigilante, and Detective Lance watches with equal parts intrigue and confusion as the Arrow deflates slightly under her scrutiny.

He releases her hold enough to drag her out slightly in front of the bodega and roots around in his leather jacket before pulling out a wallet.

The detective’s eyes widen in bafflement as the Arrow fixes Felicity with a glare of his own before turning on his heel and pushing through the doors of the store, leathers, mask, bow and arrows and all.

There’s a small lick of fury Lance feels amidst his confusion because _what dumbass would leave a young woman out in the middle of the street in the dead of night_ , but then he’s leaning over his steering wheel and squinting into the bodega and he realizes that the Arrow had placed Felicity in a spot where he had a clear view of her grumbling frown.

And it's a bit comical, the way Felicity glares at him from just outside of the store - the way he matches that same glare from his spot in the short line at the front of the convenience store.

It's also unnerving how no one really bats an eye at the Vigilante's presence in the convenience store, and Lance kind of wants to yell because he’s spent a _year_ of his life trying and failing to capture the elusive archer and now he’s here, in a 24 hour mini-mart, buying apology ice-cream for a tiny computer maniac that could one hundred percent, without a doubt, ruin everyone’s life with one short line of code.

A small glare catches Lance’s attention as the bodega doors swing open once again, and the Vigilante is piling one, two, _three_ tubs of ice cream into Felicity’s arms and Lance is nothing short of terrified by the maddening grin that spreads across the blonde’s face.

Felicity tries to pat the Arrow’s arm, but there are _three_ tubs of ice cream grasped tightly in her arms, so she settles for tilting onto her tippy-toes and pressing a soft kiss to the Vigilante’s cheeks.

Lance swears on his badge that the Arrow’s _blushing_ and, okay, there’s a lot to unpack there, but then the two are making their way down the street and Lance can see far enough to know that Felicity is safely escorted right up to her apartment door.

The detective runs a tired hand down his face as his eyes fall back to his meatball sub. It’s gone cold, he knows it, and the sports segment is over, and for the millionth and tenth time Lance can’t help but wonder how different his life would have been if he had listened to his father and become an accountant.

He lets out a long, slow sigh before slipping out of his car and making his way over to the convenience store.

* * *

“You’re tellin’ me you didn’t even think to question why the hell the _Vigilante_ was in your store?”

“Honestly, Detective, sir,” the cashier supplies in a thoroughly bored tone, “we’ve seen weirder.”

Lance blanches and then sighs for the tenth time that night.

“Let me see the receipt,” Lance grumbles, folding his arms over his chest. “He pay in cash?”

The small head shake from the cashier isn’t really necessary – they both know the Arrow isn’t stupid enough to pay with a card – but then the detective’s eyes are scanning over the receipt and he sees the three tubs of ice cream and - ,

“He bought an iguana magnet?”

“What -, oh yeah,” the cashier says nonchalantly, chomping down loudly on his gum. “It was sitting on the counter and I mentioned that the blonde, Felicity - ,”

“You know Felicity?”

The cashier levels the detective with an unimpressed stare.

“ _Of_ _course_ we know Felicity. Everyone here knows her. The girl lives like two minutes away and I’m pretty sure her ice cream obsession single handedly funds this entire business.”

Lance huffs.

“Anyway, I mentioned to him that she was eyeing it and he bought it. Not exactly the vibe I would have had him pegged for, but we all have hobbies, I guess.”

“He bought the iguana.”

“Yup.”

“The Vigilante – the guy that puts arrows into bad guys every night – bought a,” Lance squints at the receipt. “A shimmerin’ pink iguana magnet?”

“Goes kinda nice with all that green, don’t you think?”

Lance shakes his head, a small smile tugging at his mouth as he thinks about how deeply intertwined Felicity Smoak has become in so many people’s live – about how much light she’s already brought to Starling City with her colors and quirks and flying bison covered pajama pants.

Kinda nice, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! Sorry if it's not up to par/full of typos (I admit, I did not edit :/). Hope you all are doing well and are safe and healthy and for those of you going back to work/school (or if you already have), I hope necessary precautions are being taken to keep you safe! (My university has suspended in-person classes within a week of opening because of an outbreak (surprise surprise), so we'll see how that all goes). Love you all!
> 
> (Also, I've realized I end a lot of fics with "___, indeed" so whoops, I guess. Oh, and peep Appa and ATLA :,) I forgot how much I love that show).

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it, sorry if it felt rushed! I just wanted to get something out. Please please please let me know what you think! Reading your comments makes my life!! Love you all!


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